According to Yelp's Aaron Blackwell, the 2017 restaurants were weighted by the number of reviews added and the star ratings. "So someone with 100 new reviews is going to be weighted differently [higher] than a business with 15 new reviews," he explains. "That doesn't mean that someone with 15 new reviews can't rank highly." (This methodology may explain some of the unexpected inclusions on the list.)

Blackwell reiterated that the list is not compiled from an all-time high ranking, just the data ranking from this year. He also stated that there's no "pay-to-play" component involved in generating the list.

So, without further ado, here are Yelp's top 25 non-chain restaurants in St. Louis for 2017: